A former lawyer for the IRS’s Ethics Office has been disbarred for ethics violations.  The institutional rot at the most-feared agency of the federal government, one with extensive arbitrary power, should be an election issue if the GOP nominee has the wit to make it so. Let the Democrat nominee defend keeping the byzantine tax code and the bureaucracy that is currently failing to answer a majority of calls to its help line. This is a winning issue, and the start of revitalizing the economy and bringing DC bureaucrats to heel. The Washington Times reports (hat tip: TaxProfBlog and Instapundit)

A lawyer who worked in the IRS ethics office was disbarred Thursday by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, which concluded she misappropriated a client’s funds from a case she handled in private practice, broke a number of ethics rules and showed “reckless disregard for the truth” in misleading a disbarment panel looking into the matter.

The lawyer, Takisha Brown, reportedly had bragged that she would never be punished because her boss would protect her, but an IRS spokesman said Wednesday that she was no longer an employee at the agency.

“Our records indicate that this employee no longer works for the IRS,” spokesman Matthew Leas said, though he wouldn’t comment further on the case, which became another black eye for the embattled tax agency when The Washington Times first reported on it last year.

Ms. Brown had her licenses suspended and then was disbarred after misusing money she won for a client in an automobile accident case.

Glenn Reynolds asks the important question: “I wonder why she was so confident of that protection?”